By Jonathan Leigh.
Only five out of the eight registered political
parties submitted names of their parliamentary
aspirants at the close of the Tuesday deadline.
Isaac Curtis-Hooke, National Electoral Commission
External Affairs Officer said on Wednesday that of the
five, it was the SLPP, APC and PMDC who submitted a
full list of 112 aspirants each for all the
constituencies. The other two, UNPP and NDA were
unable to fill candidates in some parts of the
country.
The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) party, the PDP
and fugitive Johnny Paul Koroma’s PLP are registered
but did not present names of Presidential and
Parliamentary candidates to contest the August 11
elections.
RUFP Secretary General, Jonathan Kposowa admitted that the
party is broke and to make matters worse, they have
been evicted from the building they had occupied in
Freetown since the rebel movement was transformed into
a political party after the war.The RUFP effectively collapsed after the death in detention of its leader Corporal Foday Saybana Sankoh (photo).
The PDP disintegrated after the death of its Leader
Thaimu Bangura and even in the 2002 elections did not
present a presidential candidate. Similarly for the
PLP, whose only two members in the outgone Parliament
had defected to opposition parties.
Dr. John Karefa-Smart’s UNPP which came second in the
1996 elections but was not represented in the last
Parliament since it did not win a single seat in the
2002 elections is locked in a serious leadership struggle.
A breakaway faction led by Abdul Karim Kadry who was based in the USA for a long time, held a national convention
last year attempting to dethrone Karefa-Smart as leader.
Karefa-Smart’s faction had filed a petition with the
Political Parties Registration Commission and NEC
challenging the eligibility of the new leadership.
Meanwhile a meeting has been scheduled for Thursday between the National Electoral Commission and political parties to
work out the formality for the nomination of their
respective presidential candidates.
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